Posts Tagged ‘vacation’

26 Nov. 2014 – The people of Zihuatanejo are ready for the tourist season. Merchants and shop-keepers, restaurateurs and their staff, hotel operators and vacation rental owners, and workers in every aspect of our local businesses are anxiously awaiting the arrival of tourists for the upcoming season, especially foreigners from Canada and the United States. It’s been a long slow season for everyone here since the end of the last high season, and everyone is getting their shops and businesses spiffed up and ready for a bountiful season so that our visitors will enjoy memorable and relaxing vacations in our precious corner of paradise.

While we ask that our visitors overlook the shortcomings of our municipal government who seems to have dropped the ball on just about everything they’re responsible for, we hope everyone will notice the genuine effort on the part of the local people to go the extra mile to take good care of our new and returning visitors with the hope that they will return again and that they will tell all their friends and family members good things about Zihuatanejo and the surrounding region.

Our weather should be just about perfect every day from now until the beginning of the next rainy season in the middle of May. But if you have any doubts be sure to check the forecasts and conditions on my Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa Weather page.

And if you have any questions at all about anything regarding Zihuatanejo, Ixtapa, Troncones, Barra de Potosí or the surrounding region please be sure to ask them on my moderated and widely read Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa Message Board where you will also find hundreds of trip reports, anecdotes, recommendations, photos, videos, and useful answers to many previous questions.

The warmth of the local people combines with our tropical climate to warm the soul. A Zihuatanejo vacation is the perfect recipe for alleviating stress and warming chilled bones.

The summer vacation period in Mexico ended yesterday and today millions and millions of children returned to classes across the country. In Zihuatanejo that meant walking to school in a light drizzle for many students. It also means streets, hotels and beaches void of tourists. An unsettling occurrence for local business and lodging owners.

More and more I think it becomes apparent to lots of local businesses that opened up here in the past decade that not only is Zihuatanejo saturated with folks looking to live off tourism, but that the government’s efforts at promotion, what little they’ve done, has completely changed our tourism, especially during the summer vacation period.

New squatter lodgings at La Majahua – click to enlarge

It used to be that we had a decent mix of day trippers who came by bus, car and truck and more affluent tourists who occupied local luxury homes and lodgings. But between the hotels in Ixtapa changing their marketing strategy to almost exclusively all-inclusive seeking a class of tourist with less purchasing power, effectively charging rates that the predominantly non-corporate owned Zihuatanejo lodgings simply can’t compete with, and the government’s almost exclusive promotion of “social tourism” (the folks who come in tour buses for a day at most) we now find that all of us who live and have businesses here can no longer make a sustainable living from the tourists we’re getting. In spite of this new reality, FONATUR, who for years hasn’t been able to find buyers for the lands they’ve developed for sale, continues allowing megaprojects to wipe out natural areas and privatize beaches on the one hand while FIBAZI does similarly with squatters on the other, selling Zihuatanejo’s ecological zones for political expediency if not also personal profit. The squatters of course can’t find work and the megaprojects of course can’t find buyers, but with developers that isn’t the point. They build, they get paid, they move on to repeat the process. Similarly, many squatters get their stolen land and sell it for a huge profit and move on to repeat the process.

Unfortunately with the change of political fortunes underway, no one is doing anything. It’s almost like, no it’s definitely like there is NO GOVERNMENT (except of course they still want to collect taxes).

Tourists enjoy a lovely day at Las Gatas Beach – click to enlarge

Lots of folks from other places sure want to live off the Zihuatanejo cash cow, but it seems no one wants to do the real work of getting folks to come here, no one seems to want to engage with potential tourists, to answer their questions that help them make the decision to take their vacations here. Even the airlines seem to be conspiring against us. So I plug away here and there trying to keep Zihuatanejo in people’s thoughts, answering questions and hopefully projecting the image of a place folks will want to visit for their vacation. But man, do I ever feel like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike: alone in my efforts to try to salvage Zihuatanejo’s tourism and attract newcomers with the spending power needed to help at least some of us make ends meet.

Yesterday afternoon as the schoolbells chimed the end of the school day, they also rang in the official beginning of the Christmas holiday vacation season. Christmas and Semana Santa represent our two peak seasons of the year. By yesterday evening roads quickly became crowded with vehicles full of mostly families from other states, especially from Mexico City and the central region known as El Bajío.

It is an almost instant change in the pace of life, from low gear to high without passing any gears in between. Streets and sidewalks are instantly full of people. Restaurants fill quickly, the background noise level rises and the holiday high season gets underway in Zihuatanejo, Ixtapa, Troncones, and Barra de Potosí.

Last night the we cruised in a calm Pacific Ocean along the coast from Zihuatanejo’s bay to Ixtapa’s islands and back during sunset on the Orion sportfishing cruiser, we couldn’t help but notice the lights coming on at homes, condos and hotel rooms as twilight faded. Westin Las Brisas Ixtapa, by far one of the most beautiful hotels in Mexico, looked almost completely full as did the Barceló and the Presidente hotels. And once again Zihuatanejo-Ixtapa comes to life!